Closer and closer apart
by Fuuhase
Summary: Song fiction to Mary Chapin Carpenters "Closer and closer apart" / He hadn't meant for things to go this way. She had been his everything. She'd been his light, his source of happiness, had provided his life with balance and steadiness.


**A short note that might help you to better understand what this is about.** Some time ago, I fell utterly in love with this song. And somehow, for whatever reason, my little fangirl heart was remindet of Bruce Wayne. But in my head, Bruce Wayne and Chris Bale somehow often are the same person, displaying similiar characteristics and such (and they look awfully alike :P) ... anyway. Somehow, when I was listening to this song, the two of them morphed together in my head again, and my imagination ran a little wild, picturing the following scenes.

**Disclaimer:** I unfortunately do own neither Batman nor Mr. Wayne or Mr. Bale. Pitty, really. Also, I don't have any share in Mrs. Chapin Carpenters beautiful song. I do not make money with this.

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><p><strong>Closer and closer apart<strong>

_Tell me the truth__  
><em>_Don't ask me to lie__  
><em>_These are the things we say__  
><em>_You don't need proof and I'm not going to try__  
><em>_But I think we have lost our way__  
><em>

The sun had nearly gone down. She felt like she'd been standing there forever, looking out of this window, waiting for the sun to disappear behind the skyline.

Chicago. She'd come all the way to be with him. But even though she was thousands of miles from home, she still didn't feel like she'd gotten any closer to him. She shook her head. Silently. Sadly. Here they were, in the same city, even in the same room, and yet there were miles and miles between them. There was a huge gap that separated them from each other and she was terrified to fall into it, never to resurface again.

More than ten minutes had passed since she'd asked the question she had been dreading so much.

"Do you still love me?"

It had been met with silence. He was good at that.

Being silent was one of the things they used to be so good at together. Wrapped in his arms, sheltered and at peace, that was where she had felt safest. They had sat together often with no need for words. Silence had meant peace and quiet. It had been a refugee from a hard day, a place where they could be together. Just be, relishing in each other's company.

Not anymore, though. The silence that faced her now was hostile. It was threatening. It excluded her and put a barrier between the two of them.

"Tell me that you still love me!"

More urgent this time. But also more anxious.

He turned, looking at her, a distance in his eyes that nearly physically pushed her away.

_Don't ask me to lie. _

He didn't mouth a word. But she could read his answer from his eyes. From the way he steadied his gaze, looked not at her but right through her. Into his future? Into their past? It didn't matter. He knew. He knew as well as she did, that somewhere along the way, somewhere between him working over here in Chicago and her living her life in London, their relationship had taken a blow. Maybe more than one. Now it was standing on the edge, ready to fall over and she had no idea whether they'd be able to catch it.

She had to be honest. She had known this before. Before boarding the plane one night ago, she'd tried to persuade herself that all would be well once she'd be in his arms again. That the distance in his voice when they talked on the phone wasn't real. That the fact that he had stopped sending her messages just to tell her he loved her only meant he was busy. That the uncomfortable silence was due to tiredness on both sides and not due to the fact they had nothing to talk about anymore. Nothing to share. Nothing to keep them together. She had violently tried to persuade herself of all those things, and only to realize that she had failed miserably.

_You don't own the sun and I can't raise the moon__  
><em>_So now as the darkness falls__  
><em>_Love is so hard won then over too soon__  
><em>_And another cruel ending calls__  
><em>

"I can't tell you I love you anymore. I don't know if I do. At the moment, I feel nothing. No joy, no anger, no happiness, no sadness. Just nothing."

He tried to explain, but listening to himself while he spoke, he knew he wouldn't be able to. How could he describe the emptiness? A nothingness so vast that he felt it had swallowed him completely? Only this morning he had caught himself staring into the mirror very hard, just to make sure he was still there.

He hadn't meant for things to go this way. She had been his everything. She'd been his light, his source of happiness, had provided his life with balance and steadiness. He'd needed her like the air he'd breathed.

He remembered how they had met. It had been on a party, one of the few he couldn't avoid. He'd ordered a drink, then made his way into a darker, more distant corner of the room, determined to leave again, latest after drink number three. And he hadn't intended to drink slowly. On his way through his second whiskey, he'd sensed that someone was watching him, and there she'd been. Leaning against a wall not so far away from him, she had been standing, cocktail glass in hand, looking at him. When she'd caught his eyes, she had given him only the hint of a smile but somehow he had understood.

She'd seen him. Not the outside appearance of semi-polite indifference, but him. The man who just didn't belong there. Who wasn't cut out to smile and pretend when he didn't genuinely care. All this pretense and make-believe made him sick, and he'd never been the happy-go-lucky type to just go along with it. How she'd figured him out within minutes remained a mystery to him forever, but he had been hooked. She was so different from all the women he used to have around him. He had taken his turn watching her.

He had watched her all night, not even going back to the bar to get another drink. She had been fluttering around from one end of the room to the other, talking to people here and there, teasing and flirting along with the guys, laughing and whispering with the ladies. It all had looked genuine to him, he hadn't been able to see the least bit of pretense. Some people, he had realized, she'd avoided carefully, sometimes getting herself out of their way at the very last minute. It had made him smile and he had felt himself relax.

"You should do this more often, you know. Smile. It suits you."

Her voice had startled him. Somehow she'd managed to get over without him realizing. She had smiled at him, that gorgeous open smile that he'd later fallen for over and over again during all their time together. He could remember each and every word she'd said that night, but it had been her first two sentences that had won him over in an instant. She'd simply sat down opposite him, looking at him with her head tilted to the side a little.

"Nearly everyone here tonight has told me to run cause they've seen the way you looked at me… they've told me that you mean trouble and danger. Tell me they are wrong."

He'd have told her everything that night. She'd put herself out into the open, right in front of him, ready to get hurt but at the same time, displaying a trust in him he'd never known before. It had all started in this moment, and he'd done all that he could to keep his promises.

But the darkness, the brooding, the doubts and the questions had finally caught up with him again. The longer they were apart, the longer he had time to reflect, the harder it was for him not to close in again. He wasn't able to get himself out of the darkness alone, but somehow even her presence had lost its ability to pull him back into the light.

This relationship would end. He couldn't see any other way out. Another of his hopes shattered. Another curtain call with nothing left but loneliness.

_All I can do is turn now to you__  
><em>_Holding my hand to my heart__  
><em>_All that I know is I'm watching us grow__  
><em>_Closer and closer apart__  
><em>[ Lyrics from: .com/lyrics/m/mary_ch

She looked at him, her hands clutching, one of them slowly moving up to her heart without her even realizing. Tears clouded her eyes and it felt like he was already receding into the background, their relationship fading from her life like the sunlight disappearing from the city in her back. She didn't know what to say or do.

_Now all the kings horses and all the kings men__  
><em>_Wait for their clarion call__  
><em>_Pride hears its voices, and fear wins again__  
><em>_And there's nothing to break our fall__  
><em>

"I don't want this to end. I don't want _us_ to end! I want you to get out of this, to be yourself, to smile and laugh. You can't let yourself fall into this again. I need you here, with me, not huddled up in some godforsaken dark spot of your soul!"

He felt her pain as she yelled at him, her fear and loneliness. But he couldn't stop himself, couldn't keep the words in that bubbled up inside of him.

"I'm not huddled up. I _am_ that dark and godforsaken spot of my soul. I'm not a happy bunny, I'm not one of your precious optimistic friends and you knew that before. If you can't deal with it, so be it. There's the door. I didn't ask you to come and share my misery. I was well up alone, like I was before you entered my life. I've had a life before you and I'm very well capable of having one after you. Don't even begin to play the savior!"

Every sentence hit home. His words felt like blows to her face. Here it was. The danger they had warned her of. His pride. Mr. Untouchable. The man who always closed in sooner or later, driving people away deliberately.

arpenter/closer_and_closer_ ]

_Over and over and over again__  
><em>_The world only spins one way__  
><em>_The past is a distant flicker by now__  
><em>_And a lesson for another day_

There was a rawness to the pain in her eyes that was hard to bear. The anger he had felt after her words had only a little part to play in the things he said. What mostly drove him was fear. Fear, that even with her help, he wouldn't be able to reach the surface again. To feel again. Fear to drag her down with him. He couldn't let that happen.

She had saved him once. Had been his anchor, his safe haven. But who knew if that would be possible again? The darkness around him, the emptiness, they were so strong that all this seemed like a lifetime ago. It all lay in a far distant past, too distant to rely on it. And hadn't it all been make-believe anyway? After all, he was back down that road of misery and gloom, of self-doubt and fears, and she seemed so far away already. The fact that he could read from her face that she believed it was his pride that made him say all those things just made it worse. She couldn't see him anymore. Not like she used to.

_All I can do is turn now to you__  
><em>_Holding my hand to my heart__  
><em>_All that I know is I'm watching us grow__  
><em>_Closer and closer apart_

_Now, my sad little boat floats on out to sea__  
><em>_And you're almost out of sight__  
><em>_I'll remember you__  
><em>_Please don't forget me__  
><em>_I whisper with all my might_

_All I can do is turn now to you__  
><em>_Holding my hand to my heart__  
><em>_All that I know is I'm watching us grow ...__  
><em>_All I can do is turn back to you__  
><em>_And wave with one hand on my heart__  
><em>_All that I know is it's so hard to go ..._

She left that very evening. Took her bag and rushed past him, out of this room, out of this hotel, out of the presence of a life and a relationship that was no longer hers. She flagged down a cab, but then changed her mind. She gestured the driver on, not getting in, turned and stared up the hotel. She tried to make out the window of his room. Once she thought she found it, she wasn't sure if it was the light playing a trick on her, or if it was really him standing there, staring down at the street. At her. Tears ran down her face. The feeling of not knowing whether he was there or not, and even more the loss of the ability to see him, hurt her deep down. It was worse than his words, it was worse than any hostile silence. She wasn't angry anymore, just sad, so incredibly sad. The fact that she had to go, had to leave him even though she loved him, nearly tore her apart.

She raised a hand in a slow gesture of goodbye. She knew, whatever happened she'd always remember him. She'd never be able not to care. She'd never not be there when he needed her. She'd just have to trust that he knew. That he remembered.

_Please don't forget me._

He looked down onto the street. He braced himself against the unbearable feeling of loss when she'd have entered the cab that would drive her away from him forever. Then he shook his head. She'd been gone before this. It had been him who had driven her away.

But she didn't enter the cab. He saw her turning, looking up at him. At least that was what he hoped and wished that she was doing. The way she held herself, all insecure, made him realize that she couldn't see him. That the little wave she gave was more directed towards an idea, a shadow of him that she might still be able to see than to his actual self, standing there. And for the first time in years, tears came easily. For the first time in month, he could feel something. So she might have saved him again. Against all odds, despite all the things he had said and done to her, he wished and hoped that she might, just might not forget him. He knew he'd not. She'd always be with him. He sent a silent promise her way with all his might.

_I'll remember you_.


End file.
